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The Shady Side of the Family Tree: Civil War Union Court-Martial Case
FilesBy Trevor K. Plante

These Union soldiers from the Army of the Cumberland are awaiting court-martial.
(NARA, 111-B-2738)

Often, researching a family member's Civil War military
service can be a double-edged sword. Many researchers have the
expectation that their ancestors' military service was honorable--
highlighted by famous battles, displays of courage under fire,
and medals earned. Unfortunately, what some genealogists find is
that their ancestors' military service was not as courageous and
honorable as stories passed from generation to generation would
have them believe. Although many love to romanticize the American
Civil War, much happened that soldiers would not brag about to
their families. Army life was hard, and desertion,
insubordination, cowardice under fire, theft, murder, and rape
were not uncommon. Evidence of such behavior in the Union army
can be found in entry 15, Court-Martial Case Files, 1809-1894,
Record Group 153, Records of the Judge Advocate General (Army).
This series includes proceedings of general courts-martial,
courts of inquiry, and military commissions. A general court-martial
is the highest military tribunal convened to try
violations of military law. A court of inquiry is an
investigative body that lacks the power to impose punishments.
And military commissions are special courts established under
martial law for the investigation and trial of private citizens.

When researching a soldier who served in the Union army,
begin with his compiled military service record. These carded
records often mention a crime such as desertion or absence
without leave as well as reference to a corresponding general
order, special order, or general court-martial order. Orders are
arranged by type, year, and then number. Printed copies of
general orders and special orders can be found in Record Group
94, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917.
General court martial orders are located in Record Group 153,
Records of the Judge Advocate General (Army). These orders
provide basic information such as the date, location of the
trial, charge(s) brought against the accused, finding of the
court, and sentence. The order also specifies whether the
sentence was approved or disapproved by a higher authority.

To identify proceedings of a specific court-martial,
researchers need to consult registers reproduced on National
Archives Microfilm Publication M1105, Registers of the
Records of the Proceedings of the U.S. Army General Courts-Martial,
1809-1890. The index shows the name of the accused,
his rank, regiment, company, the president of the court, the
judge advocate, and when and where the court convened. There are
six indexes that cover the period 1861 to 1865. The case files
include records of general courts-martial, courts of inquiry, and
military commissions. Included are documents describing the
organization and personnel of the courts; charges and
specifications; pleas and arraignments of the defendants; papers
and exhibits submitted for the consideration of the courts;
proceedings, findings, and sentences of the courts; reports of
the reviewing authorities; statement of action by the secretary
of war and the President; and related correspondence. Case files
are arranged by an alphanumeric filing scheme. For 1861-1865,
court-martial case file numbers begin with II and run through OO
(NN751 for example).

A series of court-martial case files (1861-1865) that were
lost during the Civil War were later recovered by the Judge
Advocate General in the early 1890s. These files are arranged
numerically and are not included in the registers reproduced on
microfilm publication M1105. The only index to this series is in
the Old Military and Civil Records section of the National
Archives. The index is arranged alphabetically by surname. The
name index is followed by brief descriptions of each case file
including case number; the individual's name, rank, and unit; the
trial date; charges; and a summary of findings.

Desertion is a very common charge found in Civil War court-martial
case files. Many of these cases are brief and provide
little testimony. There are examples, however, of cases where the
finding of the court resulted in a flurry of activity, including
new information being brought to light after the trial ended. A
good example is the case of 2d Lt. Charles Conzet, Company B,
123d Illinois Infantry Regiment. Lieutenant Conzet deserted on
January 9, 1863, was later captured in Illinois, and returned to
his unit on February 21, 1863.(1) Conzet was tried and convicted
of desertion and sentenced "to be stripped of his badges of
office, and shot until he is dead, with musketry." Both the
commanders of the division and the Department of the Cumberland
approved the sentence and forwarded it to the President of the
United States for his approval.

After the trial, thirteen officers of the 123d Illinois,
including the regimental and company commanders, signed a letter
addressed to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, requesting that
Lt. Conzet's sentence be commuted. The officers expressed concern
that the lieutenant was "induced to abandon his post by letters
from his wife begging him to come home and relieve her from her
destitute condition, representing to him that the community in
which she lived was opposed to the war, and would do nothing to
relieve her necessities because her husband was in the Army." His
wife was in financial need, and the lieutenant had not received
any pay for his five months of service in the army. The officers
requested that the secretary of war commute his sentence to
"reduction to the ranks with forfeiture of all pay and
allowance." The officers noted that Lieutenant Conzet requested
to "be allowed to return to his company so that he may yet prove
himself to be a man." On September 24, 1864, President Lincoln
wrote, "Let the prisoner be ordered from confinement and
dishonorably dismissed [from] the service of the United
States."(2) Second Lt. Charles Conzet was dishonorably dismissed
two days later under War Department Special Order No. 321.(3)

Insubordination is another charge commonly found in court-martial
case files. Pvt. Patrick Delaney of Company D, Third
Regiment, New York Artillery was charged with "conduct
prejudicial to good order and military discipline." Two
specifications clarified the charge. The first notes that the
private violently assaulted 1st Lt. Paul Buchmeyer of Battery F,
Third New York Artillery, by kicking and striking him. The second
states that Private Delaney knew Buchmeyer to be an officer since
the lieutenant identified himself as such. Delaney responded,
"that he did not care a Goddamn if he was an officer." The court
met on February 16, 1863, at New Berne, North Carolina. In
response to the first question of the court regarding being
struck, Lieutenant Buchmeyer answered, "First time he didn't
strike me hard enough to knock me down, then I knocked him down.
He had a partner with him. The partner knocked me down & I got up
and knocked the other man down. The other man had a woman's
dress. I knew him by his hair." As to the next question, "Did
they appear to be under the influence of liquor?" the lieutenant
responded, "Yes, I thought they had enough to make them ugly."
There was no further mention of the second man in the dress in
any of the testimony. Delaney was found guilty of both charges
and sentenced to one year imprisonment at hard labor with a
twenty-four-pound ball and chain.(4)

Although the vast majority of courts-martial relate to
enlisted men, there are several cases that pertain to general
officers. One such case involves James G. Spears, who helped
organize the First Tennessee (Union) Infantry in 1861 and became
its lieutenant colonel. Spears was later placed in command of a
brigade in the Army of the Ohio and attained the rank of
brigadier general. He was a slave-owning Unionist from Tennessee
and believed the Emancipation Proclamation was illegal and
unconstitutional and that only states could change slave laws. In
February of 1864, General Spears was brought to trial in
Knoxville, Tennessee, on charges including "using disloyal
language."(5)

Several officers testified about conversations with General
Spears concerning the administration in Washington and the topic
of slavery. One Union officer testified that General Spears
expressed the view that the President of the United States had
the right to use slaves for military purposes but could not
affect the institution of slavery itself for it was governed by
state laws. Another officer testified that while discussing the
war and slavery with the accused, General Spears felt "that there
had not been a time since the rebellion began that the war could
have been closed in sixty days; that he believed it was the
policy of those in power to continue the war as a pretext or
excuse to interfere with the institution of slavery, and when he
found this to be the case, the Government might go to hell and he
would be found fighting in the field against it."

Spears was found guilty of "using disloyal language" and
"conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline" and
sentenced to be dismissed from the service of the United States.
The findings and sentence were disapproved by Maj. Gen. John M.
Schofield, commanding the Department of the Ohio, because "using
disloyal language is an offense not specified in the rules and
articles of war and hence one over which a general court martial
has no jurisdiction." Although Schofield acknowledged the lack of
jurisdiction in the case, he recommended that the accused be
dismissed anyway. This recommendation was forwarded for action to
the President of the United States. President Lincoln concurred
with Schofield's suggestion and on August 17, 1864, penned
"summarily dismissed" on the case file, thus ending the military
career of Brig. Gen. James G. Spears.(6)

The case of Pvt. William H. Cole, 109th New York Volunteer
Infantry, resulted in several letters and petitions sent on his
behalf. Cole was charged with raping Mrs. Olivia (Alvisa) Brown,
a fifty-five-year-old woman, while stationed near Laurel,
Maryland. In the spring of 1864 Cole was convicted and sentenced
to ten years of hard labor at a penitentiary in New York. The
sentence was approved by President Lincoln.(7) Four members of
the 109th New York Infantry submitted an affidavit on Cole's
behalf. Privates Bills, Brink, Tripp, and Quinn claimed that the
inhabitants of the house where the alleged rape took place
(Nicholas and Alvisa Brown and their daughter, Ellen Elizabeth
England) were not moral citizens. "We each of us further depose
that we are satisfied that the said Alvisa and the said Ellen are
lewd women and that the said Nicholas Brown is cognizant of the
fact that they keep a bawdy house."

The colonel and lieutenant colonel of the 109th New York
Regiment also submitted a letter to Abraham Lincoln. In the
letter the colonels state that "this crime when committed upon a
strictly virtuous woman we have nothing to say. We admit it's
enormity and concede that no punishment can be too severe." The
officers go on to state in regard to Mrs. Brown, "that the
character of the woman if not absolutely bad, was such at least
as was well calculated to invite the advances of a soldier. She
is not a woman of fair reputation in her neighborhood
and beyond question she encouraged soldiers to visit her house
where she supplied them with whiskey & where her conversation and
conduct were well calculated to influence and excite to violence
the passions of a drunken man." The colonels claimed that Cole
had been sufficiently punished by time already served in jail and
recommended that he be returned to duty.

Capt. William Warwick, commanding Company K, submitted a letter stating that
Private Cole's "conduct as a soldier was good" and that he knows the family
reputation of Nicholas Brown and "that the reputation of the said family is
bad." He further endorsed the reliability of the statements made in the affidavit
by Bills, Brink, Tripp, and Quinn.(8)

In this memo, President Lincoln pardoned Pvt. William H. Cole the same day the
request was made by Congressman Giles Waldo Hotchkiss of New York. (NARA, Records of the
Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army), RG 153)

Thirty-five citizens from Nichols, New York, signed a petition to President Lincoln
in July of 1864 requesting that Private Cole be pardoned and returned to his unit.
In the petition members of his community wrote, "Your petitioners further represent
that we have been acquainted with the said William H. Cole from his childhood
and that he has been a peaceable and quiet citizen and that we have never heard
any charge or complaint against him or anything against his character as a good
citizen except that he was occasionally a little wild." In light of all the letters
and petitions Lincoln finally wrote, "Pardon, according to above request."(9)
Cole was spared the remaining ten years of hard labor, released from the penitentiary
in Albany, New York, and returned to duty with the 109th New York.(10)

Proceedings of military commissions provide valuable
information on the interaction between the military and
civilians. On August 25, 1864, three people were tried by a
special military commission in Washington, D.C. Rebecca Smith and
Maria Kelley, both of Washington, were charged with "aiding and
abetting soldiers in desertion." The two women had purchased
suits for three Union deserters to help the soldiers escape
detection from authorities. Both women were found guilty and
sentenced to six months in a correctional facility in Fitchburg,
Massachusetts.(11) In a separate case, Moses Waldauer was charged
with "selling citizen's clothes to soldiers to enable them to
desert." The accused sold suits to two soldiers from the Third
Massachusetts Cavalry who were attempting to desert at the time.
Waldauer was found guilty and sentenced to six months in Clinton
Prison, New York, and fined fifty dollars.(12)

Another interesting military commission was one held for
Samuel C. Betts, a citizen of Maryland, accused of treason. Betts
was taken prisoner while in uniform in the ranks of the
Confederate army near Rappahanock Ford on February 25, 1863. The
commission met on March 3, 1863, at the headquarters of the Army
of the Potomac located at camp near Falmouth, Virginia. The
commission was headed by Brig. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, who in
three months' time, while commanding III Corps at Gettysburg
would receive a wound that cost him his right leg. Betts was
found guilty and sentenced "to be hung with a rope by the neck
until dead." The Judge Advocate General noted that the sentence
could not be enforced since the record shows the individual was a
prisoner of war having been captured in uniform in the rebel
ranks. The President agreed, writing, "Disapproved. The record
showing clearly that the accused is a prisoner of war & should be
treated as and exchanged."(13) There is no reference in the
proceedings of this case to show that other Marylanders were
captured at the same time as Samuel Betts. It is only upon
reading the endorsement from the Judge Advocate General that we
learn that two other men were captured with Betts and
subsequently charged with the same offense. Proceedings of the
cases of Marylanders James Rider and James R. Oliver can be
traced in separate court-martial case files.(14)

Civil War court-martial case files are a rich source of information concerning
an individual's military service. Once genealogists have seen the compiled military
service record and pension file of their Civil War ancestor, a court-martial
case file can provide facts regarding the soldier's service not previously uncovered.(15)
More important, case files offer more than just details about a soldier's individual
trial. Reading testimonies of soldiers and citizens brought before various courts
gives researchers insight into American culture during the Civil War. In fact,
one scholar has begun extensive use of Civil War court-martial case files in
relating Civil War history. Dr. Thomas P. Lowry has used a large number of court-martial
cases in two recently published works, The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell:
Sex in the Civil War (1994) and Tarnished Eagles: The Courts-Martial
of Fifty Union Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels (1998). For more information
on Civil War Union court-martial case files, please write to Old Military and
Civil Records (Room 13W), National Archives and Records Administration, 700
Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20408-0001, providing the name, rank,
and unit of the individual.

Notes

1. Additional information related to Lieutenant Conzet's
capture can be found in his compiled military service record
filed under the last name of "Conzit." Lt. Charles Conzit, Co. B,
123d Illinois Infantry, entry 519, Carded Records, Volunteer
Organizations: Civil War, Records of the Adjutant General's
Office, 1780's-1917, Record Group 94, National Archives and
Records Administration, Washington, DC (hereinafter, records in
the National Archives will be cited as RG ___, NARA).